D22.18

The Hon. and Very Reverend James Wentworth Leigh and Frances Leigh nee Butler James Wentworth Leigh was born on 21 September 1838 in Paris, the son of Chandos Leigh (later 1st Baron Leigh of the second creation) and his wife Margarette nee Willes. He was the twin of Sophia, and they were the youngest of their parents' ten children. He and Sophia were first baptised on 23 January 1839 in Paris, but baptised again on 10 September in Stoneleigh. James attended Harrow and Trinity College Cambridge, before becoming ordained in 1862. He began his priesthood in Bromsgrove before becoming Vicar of Stoneleigh between 1864 and 1873. During this time he was an extremely popular pastor, who gave evening classes at the Reading room and started a Co-operative Society. He was rightly proud of the achievements of many villagers who benefited from his initiatives, and assiduously recorded the names and relationships of all the families within the village. A clubbable and sympathetic character, he was also a fine and enthusiastic cricketer and raconteur. His published autobiography "Other Days" reveals him to have been a great traveller with a gift for anecdote. He was, famously, a fervent member of the Temperance movement. James married, on 29 June 1871, at St Thomas' Marylebone, Frances Butler, the daughter of Pierce Butler and Frances Kemble; they returned to Stoneleigh in some style, to set up house at the vicarage, now Wentworth House. There they entertained many famous individuals from the creative arts, including Arthur Sullivan and Jenny Lind. Frances' mother, the actress Fanny Kemble, also stayed, and gave recitals in the Reading Room. After Frances' father died they continued to manage his rice plantations in Georgia, using emancipated labour; for ten years they shuttled between the UK and the USA. One of his many achievements was to build a fine church, St Cyprian's Episcopal, "for the Colored People of Mackintosh County". James later became vicar of St James' Alveston; All Saints' Leamington; and St Mary's Bryanston Square, ultimately becoming Dean of Hereford Cathedral from 1894-1919. The west front of the cathedral has a representation of him along with a display of Masonic emblems: he was Provincial Grand Master of the Herefordshire Freemasons between 1906 and 1923. He and Frances had a daughter, Alice Dudley (D 23.18) and a son, Pierce Butler( D 23.19) A daughter, Frances, was born and died in 1878. He died in Belgravia on 5 January 1923 and was buried at Stoneleigh on 9 January. Frances Leigh nee Butler was born at Butler Place, Philadelphia Pennsylvania, on 28 May 1838, the younger daughter of Pierce Butler and his wife Frances (otherwise known as Fanny) nee Kemble. Pierce inherited great wealth and several plantations in Georgia, USA, but squandered much of his fortune. He and his wife divorced in 1849 and he retained custody of his two daughters, living mostly in Philadelphia. After the end of the American Civil War and the emancipation of slaves, Frances' father died and she continued to manage the plantations. She met James Wentworth Leigh in 1869 and they were engaged a year later. In 1883 she published her reminiscences, in which she recorded the ten years which she and James had spent managing the American properties. She died in Hereford on 18 December 1910 and was buried at Stoneleigh on 21 December. The memorial takes the form of a large Celtic cross. On the face commemorating James Wentworth Leigh, the inscription reads: On the face commemorating Frances Leigh the inscription reads: